Tower
by oneredapple
Summary: Bella, Alice, Rosalie and Jasper hate living in Forks- they take matters into their own hands and end up at school in London.. rated T at the moment although this is subject to change. AH, canon couples. First story :
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

I hated parties, and tonight was not an exception to this rule. Somehow, though, I was still excited, butterflies dancing jerkily in my stomach as my heart pounded out an embarrassingly uneven bassline.

I swear it was loud enough for Rose to pick up on; she stared at me oddly through those feather duster lashes, cornflower blue eyes examining my face intently. I tried to smile at her, but she just arched an eyebrow in disbelief. She knew me almost better than I knew myself.

Thankfully, her attention was diverted as the door to my bedroom banged open, causing Lauren, one of the many 'friends' I had made when I first came to Forks and didn't know any better, to trail garish pink lipstick across her cheek.

Jazz, Rose's twin, snickered softly at the effect of his entrance and turned to me.

"Bells, we oughta get moving, party started at like 8, right Rose?"

She nodded coolly, and Jasper scowled. What got him? He was usually the calm one. In response to my questioning glance, he turned the face of his special edition Toywatch towards me.

"Can't we just blow it off?" I whined. We could hang out here, play drinking games, just Rose, Jazz, Alice and I. And then I realised. Alice. Alice was already at the party, having travelled straight there after her return flight from Chicago, and now she'd be there alone, without her guardian angels to turn away Tyler's false apologies and hold her hand when she saw him with someone else. Ah, shit.

Jazz floored the accelerator the whole way there, ignoring the protesting squeals of Lauren and her equally skanky cousin, Jessica. We arrived in record time- 7 minutes.

Rose and I jumped out of the car, leaving Jazz with the other two and scanning the mass of intoxicated bodies for the elfin, spiky-haired figure that completed our trio.

We found her in the tiny galley kitchen, perched precariously on the countertop, skinny legs swinging against the cupboards as she lectured some poor greasy haired kid with a skin problem on Dior Homme and Lanvin and how oil and ketchup marked jeans and yesterday's shirt really did not constitute suitable party gear. She looked up, and a smile spread across her gorgeous face. She launched herself off of the counter, completely forgetting about the

poor guy she'd been preaching to as she wrapped us both up in an enormous hug, her strength once again amazing me.

'Bel-la, you tried to ditch, didn't you?' she giggled at me. Rose rolled her eyes expressively. 'When does she not?!', she snickered. It was true, of course. While my two best girlfriends in the whole world were the original party queens, I would much rather spend an evening tucked up with Cathy and Heathcliff and a family-size block of chocolate. Losing myself in books is what I did best.

About to give my best, most sarcastic retort, we were rudely interrupted by what at first seemed to be a single entity stumbling into the kitchen, and turned out to be two people glued together. Alice blanched, and I distinguished Tyler's face as he came up for air. He looked at us, horrified, and the girl turned around, clearly irritated at the distraction. Lauren. Oh, yuck. They deserved each other, and Rosalie said as much later, as we cradled Alice in the back of Jazz's car, her waifish form shaking. We needed to get out of here, away from freaking Tyler, away from Lauren and Jessica, who were probably double teaming him right now, away from stupid Forks High and away from the constant, depressing fog and drizzle that characterised our home state of Washington.

Curled up back at mine, with the dark shut out and our bodies warmed by the glowing fire in the living room, we plotted. 'We'll have to wait 'til college', Rose, ever the realist, sighed.

'No!' Alice ran a hand through the nest of spikes atop her head, 'Boarding school. Remember, Renee wanted to send Bella instead of her coming here?'

'That could work' Jazz mused 'I bet dear _Monsieur et Madame Hale _would love it. They wouldn't have to come home at all then.'

Rose sighed again. Her parents' absence took a far greater toll on her than she cared to admit- they were rarely even on the same continent, their wine business being based in Southern France. She had felt the lack of a mother keenly through her teenage years.

Alice slipped a comforting arm through hers and grinned. 'Actually, my parents were already planning on sending me away. Some place in London, near all the other Brandons'

'Hang on' I said, startled. '_London?_'

'Mhmmm', she concurred through a mouthful of grilled cheese. 'Well, just outside. It's this closed campus place, it looks pretty cool. There's no uniform!' she added excitedly. 'That means shopping. _Lots _of it.'

'But that's across the _Atlantic_, Ali! The whole system is different there!' I exclaimed. London was a bit further than I had been thinking. Seattle, maybe?!

'It's not too bad, actually' Jazz smiled as he considered it. 'We're all sixteen now, so we'd have two years left of school over there. It's pretty awesome; you pick like three, four subjects and that's all you have to study, plus, y'know, extracurriculars and stuff..'

'Maybe, but still, London?!' I repeated my earlier anxieties. Renee, my mother, had wanted to send me away when she travelled with her new husband, Phil, a minor league baseball player, and I had refused, instead moving in with Charlie, my father. She would, in all honesty, probably be delighted if I changed my mind, as would Charlie, who led a solitary life of work and fishing and struggled to hold a conversation about anything else, making life with his teenage daughter more than a little awkward. Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing- even Rosalie was smiling now and I had to join in.

Alice took this as victory, and immediately logged into my computer, tapping keys until a navy webpage with white script loaded on the screen. 'This is it' she said, a shiteating grin spreading across her face. 'The Tower School, just outside London, so named because the oldest part of it is this awesomely tall tower. The rest got burned down in like, the eighties, so it's the only historical bit left. The rest is all modernist, glass and steel.' It was stunning- photos showed the new buildings curving elegantly around an enormous courtyard, a huge, knotted oak tree in the centre. The tower formed the end of one of the modern buildings, blackened and gothic in contrast to the clean lines of the rest of the school. My mouth opened, and before I could help myself, I was saying 'Yes. Hell, yes!'

We formulated our plans straight through the night, the sun glowing on the horizon before we 'had things straight', as Alice put it. I woke to the flickering of the dying fire, our old station clock informing me that it was three in the afternoon. The clattering and cursing coming from the kitchen made me giggle, and I joined Jazz there, letting the others sleep.

His second attempt at pancakes was successful, and I doused them liberally in syrup as Rose shuffled in, sunlight highlighting her glorious features more perfectly than any Hollywood cinematographer. The movie version of bedhead; if I didn't love the girl so much I would loathe her just for her ability to be flawless, always. Alice wasn't much easier to take, her ebony chop and elfin features making her a modern day Audrey Hepburn. Ugh. I knew what _I _looked like at that moment: Medusa, with rats' tail hair and mascara-blackened eyes.

We gossiped over our breakfast, taking our sweet time and just enjoying the easy camaraderie between us- it often felt as though _this_ was my real family, as opposed to Charlie and Renee. Much as I loved the two of them, it often felt as though I was the parent, and I never really felt at home in either of their environments. I had made up my mind to call Renee the minute everyone left and tell her that I had changed my mind about looking into boarding schools. I would tell Charlie when he got back from the station- he was police chief in Forks, one of the many reasons I hated it here, although I would never tell him that.

Alice and Rose were bickering over the last pancake, Jazz laughing at the ever growing ridiculousness of their comments. His gaze lingered most frequently on Alice as she tussled animatedly with his twin, and once again I wondered about his feelings for her- they were clearly more than platonic and at times, it seemed that Ali felt the same way. Nothing had ever happened beyond drunken kisses, though, and although Rose and I had often discussed prodding them firmly in the right direction, we'd never actually acted on these plots, trusting that they'd sort themselves out in their own time. I giggled along with them, until Alice gave up, Rose triumphantly stuffing the sticky, sweet pancake into her mouth in one go.

We would be okay, our little family.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

Everyone was gone. That meant that I should have been on the phone to Renee, which I wasn't. Coward. Instead, I had run myself a bath, sinking into the freesia scented froth blissfully, trying to ignore the nervous energy running through my system. Logically, I knew she would be delighted at my change of heart. It wasn't that simple though- she would think I was running away from heartbreak, or closeting myself from the world due to some kind of identity crisis. She had an extreme tendency to romanticise things, which I hated- hence my lack of contact with her.

I lay there until the water was cold, my fingers and toes wrinkled like prunes, and sighed. I would have to do it now.

She picked up instantly, as I knew she would. 'Bella!' she shrieked in excitement.

'Hey, Ren… Mom' I said, almost forgetting her preferences.

I could hear the smile in her voice, 'Honey, how are you? What's new? Did you meet a boy? How's _Jasper_?' God, she won't give up on the idea of Jazz and I.

I laughed, 'Jazz is fine, Mom. Still admiring Alice from afar. I'm fine too… I was actually wanting to talk to you about something'

'What is it?' She was probably quivering with anticipation down in Phoenix.

'I, uh, I had a uhm..'

'Had a _what_, honey?'

'I had a rethink about the whole boarding school thing, that we talked about before I moved up here'

'_And_?!'

'I think I've found one I like. Alice's parents are actually considering sending her away too, so I'd have a friend there, which would make it easier.'

'Oh, honey! I'm so happy. I knew you'd come around. Where did you say it was?'

'I, uh, didn't. It's in London… well, just outside'

'London,_ England_?!' I love how my mom talks in exclamation marks.

'Yeah' I replied cautiously, 'Would that be okay?'

'Well… I guess. I mean, it's a big pond you're putting between us, that's all. Who's gonna check on you?'

'Alice has relatives there, you know I told you she was English? You could contact them if you wanted' I crossed my fingers at this point.

'Yeah, I could' she sounded more confident now. 'Anything you want to tell me about why _England_ is suddenly the place to be?'

'Yes, mom.' I had to be sarcastic to get through this. 'Prince William and I, we met through Alice and I just can't forget him, I mean… wow.'

She sighed at my tone, then giggled 'Well, you could meet him. You never know, honey. Buckingham Palace _is _in London.'

We hung up soon after, Renee having talked the financial side of things through with Phil. I gave her Alice's mom's email address, so that she could contact her English relatives, and it was sorted. It was slightly surreal, knowing that in a month or so I could be at the school Alice had described as 'like some kind of fairytale' only the night before.

Charlie was slightly harder to convince. I had reheated some of his buddy Harry Clearwater's fish fry, knowing it was his favourite food, and set the coffee table in the living room so that he could have a tv dinner, which I think softened him to the point of acceptance that evening. He asked a lot of questions about the school- I ended up showing him the website, and letting him explore, unable to cope with the police interrogation I was being subjected to.

I heard him on the phone to Renee that night, talking through finances and holidays, and that was when I knew I had won.

My GPA was almost flawless, as were Alice, Jazz and Rose's, and as the 'sixth form' admissions were judged on grades and references alone, we had few problems gaining admission to Tower, as we began to call it. All we had left was the long, probably not very hot summer break. We would fly directly from Seattle on the 28th August, to Heathrow, London where we would be collected by Alice's aunt, whose son Emmett also attended Tower. School commenced on the 2nd September, with everyone arriving the day before to settle into dorms and collect timetables, so we would have a few days to hang out in London first. I was unbelievably excited. It had all happened so fast, it was still dreamlike to me. One of our wild 'get out of Forks' plots had actually succeeded, spectacularly.

I spent my days with Alice, Rose and Jazz, lying on the Hales' couch, flipping through Alice's issues of Vogue and Nylon while Rose and Jazz argued their way through Car and Driver. To be honest, no one else really featured in our lives- Angela and Ben, a couple from our school, came over occasionally, but we were happy as we were, in our own cosy bubble. Weeks drifted past- in the movie version of my life, the calendar pages would float away on the breeze, over a montage of my friends and I watching tacky eighties movies, playing drinking games, cheating at monopoly and nearly burning Alice's kitchen down twice. It was glorious, despite the fact that it was, well, Forks, and the weather was crap and there was little to do.

Then, suddenly, our gorgeous summer montage stopped playing, and it was a week and a half 'til London. It was Alice, of course, who noticed this, jumping up from my bedroom floor on a particularly misty, pathetic day, announcing 'Girls! We are going shopping.' I glanced at Jasper, whose face had brightened at his apparent exclusion from her plot, and she smirked. '_And_ boy', she added.

'But why, Ali?' whinged Rose, who had apparently been woken by this outburst.

'It is ten days until we get on that plane to London and we have not bought a _single_ item of clothing to wear at school yet, despite the fact that all our parents have provided ample funding for this! What are we doing, people?'

'Not shopping' I mumbled. Unfortunately, she heard me, and two minutes later I was being bundled into my own bathroom with a folded stack of clothing, chosen (of course) by Alice. My dark hair stayed as it was, tangling down my back and around my face. I slipped into the skinny jeans and laughed when I saw the tee, printed with 'Who the f*ck is Chanel?' in scribbly writing- Alice poking fun at my lack of fashionable knowledge. A black blazer with rolled sleeves and quirky studded boots completed my look and I stepped out into my room just as Alice and Rose walked back in. Jasper had clearly changed in there, now wearing trashed jeans and a blue plaid shirt with his trademark beanie. I had to laugh- he loved that thing, and owned about eight replicas. Alice was smiling too, the same height as me in the sky-high Topshop ankle boots she'd waited six weeks of last year for, having paid shipping from Britain. Super skinny black jeans and an oversize embellished sweater matched with the beloved boots, and with Rosalie next to her in her favourite black double u-neck dress, an oversize cardi, thick tights and flat ankle boots, the scene was straight out of her latest issue of i-D. We scooted down to my garage, directed by drill sergeant Alice Brandon, and hopped into Jazz's adorable yellow Mini Cooper for the drive to Port Angeles, which held the nearest mall deemed acceptable- this, however, was just the start. Tomorrow, we were informed, would be Seattle.

The drive was short, and we passed the time singing along to the Beatles- 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' was our group favourite, the trippy lyrics burned into our brains from more of these trips than could be counted. Pulling into the mall car park, Jazz barely had time to put on the handbrake and Alice was out of the car and in through the revolving doors, disappearing into a nearby store. By the time we caught her she had armfuls of clothing for us to try on, her smile wide as she explained her system. 'So, Rose, I know your favourite colour is red but I was thinking more nudes, embellishment, that kind of thing for you. Kind of Serena from Gossip Girl, 'cause you've got that whole tumbling hair, endless legs thing going on and I really think it would suit you..' she rambled as she held various wisps of chiffon and intricate beading up against Rosalie's form. Rose grabbed the things she liked, disappearing into the fitting rooms and leaving me at the pixie's mercy.

'Well, since you're, like, surgically attached to your skinny jeans and stuff already, I figured you'd be more comfortable if I just made you a bit more edgy' Alice chatters, 'But, Bella, there _will_ be skirts and dresses. And you have to wear them. _Please_?' she adds as an afterthought, grey-blue eyes wide and pleading. Ugh, that girl. 'Fine, do what you think best' I resigned myself.

It wasn't too bad, actually. Kind of Alice's version of my style, if that was possible. Even the dresses were good- mostly plain American Apparel double u-necks like Rose's. Worn with big plaid or denim shirts over them and a pair of flats, I was fine. I ended up with bags of things I liked- a first for an Alice-led shopping trip. I could see myself wandering around campus in my new boyfriend blazer, skinny jeans and a tee, carrying the beat-up leather satchel I'd found in a thrift store for $6, to which Alice had attached a thick silver chain in place of the fraying strap.

Rose and Alice's new wardrobes were pretty amazing too- to be fair, Ali had really outdone herself. She was right, Rose _did_ look like a better version of Serena van der Woodsen in her new clothes, and for herself, Ali had conjured up a kind of French, faintly dishevelled chic that we all loved.

Jasper refused to take part in this restyle, claiming that he was 'fantastic the way I am, thanks' through the laughter when Alice suggested he try a bowler hat instead of his beanie. He ended up purchasing more of his usual slouchy v-necks, knit vests and plaid shirts- 'indie boy uniform' as Rose called it. Astonishingly, I had actually enjoyed my day and as we all slouched down in the corner seat in the food hall, I was happy and relaxed. We munched away on our shared pizzas, giggling and ribbing Alice about the constant flow of Topshop parcels entering her household. For the first time we realised just how different it would be living in London-shops, food, culture… I was becoming more and more excited as we continued to speculate.


End file.
